At least that’s the general case with most members of our
‘Meeple Guild’ each of us having dozens of minis we have gathered through the
years – admittedly some never glued together, others never or barely painted,
and many never seeing game play – but we always look longingly at the
next one we want.
Well mini fans Canadian company Helios Tabletop has just
ramped up things in terms of our collective collecting addiction.
This company really has burst on the scene in the most
exciting of ways.
In a world where increasingly minis are purchased as stl
files and you are left to print them hoping your printer is up to the task
Helios still produces physical minis.
But they have taken that a step further creating what are
essentially ‘theme packs’ releasing a small set of related minis monthly. You
can get in on a month delivery schedule and this little white box – nothing
fancy in the packaging – of mini joy arrives in your mailbox.
And, better yet the minis inside are complete. No gluing
which we all know is the absolute worst part of miniatures.
Now this review specifically is looking at the Cavern of
Kobolds, Mythic Box.
Now kobolds are what we might term an under-appreciated
dungeon denizen, but one look at this box of kobold baddies will change that.
These are fierce defenders of the dark which will have your RPG characters
wishing they were back in the local tavern with a mug of grog.
“The decision to do a Kobolds Mythic Box came
about for a few reasons,” offered Nick Di Scipio with Helios via
email.
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| Canadian company |
“First, they're classic fantasy enemies and almost everyone has faced them before in their campaigns.
“Second, we meet a lot with local DMs and players and
during a specific round of interviews with local DMs it was one of the enemies
a lot of DMs wanted to see in our Mythic Box line and so we took that input and
decided to make it the next Mythic Box encounter at the time. Since many
players have encountered kobolds before, we knew we had to make our
version stand out and get people excited about Kobolds again. We
didn’t want it to feel like just another throwaway skirmish - so we set out to
create something that felt fresh, dynamic, and memorable.
“That meant bringing a lot of depth to the encounter like
tasking the party with a time-sensitive objective of interrupting a shamanic
ritual to prevent the awakening of an ancient dragon, incorporating
environmental puzzles that players must solve to progress through the
encounter, and designing unique combat mechanics that push beyond the usual
kobold tactics.”
Oh yes, Helios makes integrating their mythic boxes into a
campaign – at least a D&D 5e one with an included ‘combat encounter’ a more
or less random encounter to drop into a dungeon as a very good excuse to get
these beauty minis to the table.
“The idea for the Mythic Boxes came from a desire to make
Dungeon Master's lives easier so they could focus on the parts of DMing
they love without all the stress and time that comes from the hours of
prep before a session,” explained Di Scipio. “We wanted to create
immersive, ready-to-run encounters that deliver both high-quality miniatures
and a range of DM tools like stat blocks and story hooks in one package. With
two-thirds of the Helios leads being Dungeon Master's, we know how time-consuming
it can be to prep all the aspects needed to run an exciting and unforgettable
encounter - so we wanted to make it much easier to deliver a
consistently exciting experience for their party, while still
allowing the DMs to keep their creative freedom intact.”
So what does The Meeple Guilder in charge of 3D printing,
and a mini-painting addict think of the Helios minis.
“I did some work on those kobolds last night, I need to know
what resin these guys use it's pretty resilient,” Jordan noted in a group
chat we have going. “Tiny bit of support clean up but no printing errors and
the detail is pretty good on them.”
The detail drew praise from Jordan as well, noting he
“appreciated the fancied up cave bases for the kobolds.”
When asked about a fav kobold, well Di Scipio has one.
“Most people would probably say the Kobold Shaman is the
best piece in the set with his potions, crude staff, and skull mask but I
personally think it's the Kobold Thief as his design is quite unique and we
wanted to incorporate the bag he carries as part of his combat mechanics by
giving him an ability to 'scoop up' smaller players,” he said. “I'm sure DMs
will be delighted to work this into their combat and snatch players away when
they fail the dexterity save because we sure enjoyed that!”
Overall the kobolds are very nice, and can be very useful for an DM or D&D table, which is really what Di Scipio said was Helios’ goal.
“Just like all our Mythic Boxes, we hope the Cavern
of Kobolds set offers DMs a plug-and-play encounter that’s easy and
enjoyable to run while giving their players an exciting, cinematic experience
filled with surprises, clever enemy mechanics, and meaningful choices that go
beyond simple combat,” he said. “Overall if the players are happy, the DMs are
happy and we want to help to create that satisfaction.”
Toward that goal Helios hit the target dead centre.
Check it out at https://heliostabletop.ca/products/cavern-of-kobolds-april-2025-monthly-mythic-box
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